Bulgakov and Bykov come to Piccadilly

Alexander Mamut unveils a brand new Russian-language bookstore in the heart of London.

The
opening of a new bookstore does not sound like a particularly glamorous occasion
or a great social event. In these recessionary and digitalized times, with
e-books decimating the world of print, bookstores are more likely to close down
than start up. But the official launch of The Russian Bookshop in the
high-profile Piccadilly branch of Waterstone’s on March 1 bucked the prevailing
trend on all these fronts. Not only that, but most of the 5,000 books on sale
there are in Russian.

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This
is excellent news for London’s growing community of expats and Russophiles.
Natasha Semyonova, who has lived in London for 15 years, made her first visit
to the store and purchased a book of essays by Tatyana Tolstaya and some short
stories by Sergei Dovlatov, whose work she praised as refreshingly funny and
unpretentious. Semyonova said she could see herself as a regular customer. “I
used to bring suitcases of books over from Moscow,” she said, adding that she
feels the mark-up on prices is not unreasonable. “When you think how many happy
minutes you will have with a book and that it only costs the same as two
average glasses of wine.”

When
Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut bought the Waterstone’s chain of nearly 300
bookstores last year, he asked his new managing director, James Daunt why none
of them included a Russian section. At the launch party for The Russian
Bookshop, Daunt said that with the help of radical Moscow bookseller and
philosopher Boris Kupriyanov, they had very quickly created “the most
authoritative Russian book shop in London,” adding, “I personally feel an
enormous sense of pride in it.”

Kupriyanov
is determined to create a high-quality shop, and rejected the idea that the
store should cater to the popular taste for “psychology books and cheap
detective novels.” Instead, The Russian Bookshop has a strong emphasis on art,
poetry, literary classics and fine contemporary writing, as well as history,
politics and some beautiful children’s books. The English corner of the shop
also has a decent selection of books about Russia and works in translation,
selling everything from graphic novels of “The Master and Margarita” to William
Brumfield’s tome on Russian architecture. Muscovite Maya Kucova from Snob
magazine was excited by the range of books on offer. “I’ve never seen such a
selection of Russian books in London,” she said. “Even in Moscow it can be hard
to find this kind of quality.”

Mamut,
co-owner of the SUP media company that runs the popular blogging platform
LiveJournal, expressed his love of real books and of Russian culture; he also
helped to advertise the forthcoming series of “Citizen Poet” concerts in London.
Yevgeny Chichvarkin, who is organizing the concerts, was at the store’s launch
party, wearing bright pink, along with his creative partners. In a surreal
moment, guests could look up from admiring a row of novels by Dmitry Bykov to
see the distinctive, larger-than-life figure of the author himself coming up
the spiral staircase that leads to the book shop. Bykov was back in the store
on March 3signing copies of his latest book.

Other
writers who raised a glass of champagne in the new shop included Tom Stoppard,
Anthony Beevor and Orlando Figes. Cyril Tuschi, whose new film about Khodorkovsky premiered the first weekend in
March, also came to celebrate. Mari Vanna, a new, top-end restaurant in
Knightsbridge provided drinks and canapés and symbolically presented each guest
with a key to their front door.James Meek, award-winning journalist and
author of “The People’s Act of Love” joked: “Most expat communities have to
make do with a dusty, little kiosk on the edge of town… Only the Russians would
open a flagship store on the most expensive shopping street.”